Search the departure table
Filter by service type or type a train number, a city or a gateway. Departures marked confirm on the week of booking are lanes that run regularly but whose day moves with the season and with space — we confirm the actual departure in writing rather than printing an estimate as if it were a timetable.
18 lanes shown
| Train no. | Lane | Departures | Gateway | Gauge change | Transit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X8151 | Xi'an International Port → Duisburg | Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat · 03:55 | Alashankou / Khorgos | Alashankou or Khorgos, then Małaszewicze | 11–12 days |
| X8153 | Xi'an International Port → Prague | Wed · 05:55 | Khorgos | Khorgos, then Małaszewicze | 11 days 4 hours |
| X8159 | Xi'an International Port → Budapest | Sat · 23:00 | Alashankou | Alashankou, then Małaszewicze | 10 days 23 hours |
| — | Duisburg → Xi'an (return) | Tue, Wed, Thu | Małaszewicze / Alashankou | Małaszewicze, then Alashankou | 16–25 days |
| — | Xi'an → Baku, Absheron (via Alat Port) | About 30 trains a month, effectively daily | Khorgos | Khorgos, then Aktau or Kuryk ferry to Alat | 25–35 days |
| — | Xi'an → Duisburg / Hamburg / Warsaw / Milan / Belgrade | About 40 trains a month towards Europe | Alashankou / Khorgos | Alashankou or Khorgos, then Małaszewicze | 16–25 days |
| — | Xi'an → Moscow (Selyatino, Vorsino, Bely Rast, Khovrino, Elektrougli) | Confirm on the week of booking | Alashankou / Khorgos / Manzhouli | Alashankou, Khorgos or Manzhouli | 25–35 days |
| — | Xi'an → St Petersburg (Shushary) | Confirm on the week of booking | Alashankou / Khorgos / Manzhouli | Alashankou or Khorgos; Manzhouli on the northern route | 25–35 days |
| — | Xi'an → Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk-T) | Confirm on the week of booking | Alashankou / Khorgos | Alashankou or Khorgos | 25–35 days |
| — | Xi'an → Almaty 1 / Tashkent / Bishkek | Weekly and denser | Khorgos / Alashankou | Khorgos or Alashankou (Dostyk) | 7–15 days |
| — | Xi'an → Sarahs / Aqala (Turkmenistan) | On request | Khorgos | Khorgos | On request |
| — | Xi'an → Hairatan (Afghanistan, via Termez) | 1 a week, 4 a month | Khorgos / Alashankou | Khorgos or Alashankou, then Termez | 20–25 days |
| — | Xi'an → Minsk (Belarus) | Confirm on the week of booking | Alashankou / Khorgos | Alashankou or Khorgos | About 20 days |
| — | Xi'an → Baku (groupage) | Regular departures | Khorgos | Khorgos, then the Caspian ferry | 25–35 days |
| — | Xi'an → Moscow, Selyatino (groupage) | 2 a week | Alashankou / Khorgos / Manzhouli | Alashankou, Khorgos or Manzhouli | 25–35 days |
| — | Xi'an → Duisburg / Warsaw (groupage) | Weekly | Alashankou / Khorgos | Alashankou or Khorgos, then Małaszewicze | 18–25 days |
| — | Xi'an → Almaty / Tashkent (groupage) | Weekly | Khorgos | Khorgos | 7–15 days |
| — | Xi'an → St Petersburg, Shushary (groupage) | Confirm on the week of booking | Alashankou / Khorgos / Manzhouli | Alashankou or Khorgos; Manzhouli on the northern route | 25–35 days |
Three service types, three different promises
| Service | What is fixed | What to plan for |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed timetable (X8151, X8153, X8159) | Train number, route, departure day and hour, border slots, published arrival | A cut-off you cannot move. Missing it costs a whole cycle, not a day. |
| Block train (most lanes) | The corridor, the gateway and the transit band | Departure day is set per departure. The train leaves when it is full and the path is allocated. |
| LCL | The consolidation date at our own CFS in Xi'an | Your cargo waits for the box to close, not for a train to fill. Frequency is what caps that wait. |
All transit figures on this page are station to station. They exclude factory collection in China, the export declaration, and at destination the clearance, devanning and final delivery. On most lanes the two ends add a few days each; we quote them separately so you can see which part of the journey is actually rail.
The three fixed-timetable trains: X8151, X8153, X8159
A fixed-timetable service is not a marketing upgrade — it is a different operating model. The railways along the whole route agree a path in advance: fixed departure, fixed border slots, a fixed duration written into the timetable for each transhipment, and a published arrival hour. The trade calls it the “five fixed” model, and the visible benefit is that two-thirds of the usual variance disappears, because the queue at the gauge change is scheduled rather than encountered.
| Train | Lane | Departs Xi'an | Runs | Gateway | Arrives |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X8151 | Xi'an → Duisburg, 9,908 km | Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat · 03:55 | 11–12 days | Alashankou or Khorgos, then Małaszewicze | Duisburg |
| X8153 | Xi'an → Prague | Wed · 05:55 | 11 days 4 hours | Khorgos, then Małaszewicze | Prague |
| X8159 | Xi'an → Budapest | Sat · 23:00 | 10 days 23 hours | Alashankou, then Małaszewicze | Budapest |
| — | Duisburg → Xi'an (return) | Tue, Wed, Thu | 16–25 days | Małaszewicze, then Alashankou | Xi'an |
Note the pattern on the Duisburg lane: nothing leaves on Sunday or Monday. That gap is where most late bookings lose their week. Cargo that reaches the warehouse on Thursday or Friday is comfortably on the following Tuesday; cargo that arrives on Monday is already chasing a train that left on Saturday.
Frequency decides the cost of being late. Duisburg runs four times a week, so a missed cut-off costs two or three days. Prague and Budapest run once a week, so the same mistake costs seven. On a weekly lane the timetable is faster in transit and far less forgiving in planning — which is why we quote both the timetabled service and a standard departure on the same enquiry.
Why frequency matters more than the promised transit time
Two lanes can both say “20 days” and behave nothing alike. What decides whether your cargo hits the delivery date is not the transit figure on the fastest departure, it is the interval between departures when something goes wrong.
- A lane with daily departures absorbs a disruption. Xi'an runs about thirty scheduled block trains a month to Baku, effectively one a day. If a box misses one departure, the next one is tomorrow — the disruption is measured in hours, not weeks.
- A weekly lane does not. One departure a week means one missed cut-off equals one lost week, and in the pre-holiday period a lost week can mean a lost season.
- Density is also capacity. A corridor carrying forty trains a month towards Europe has slack in a way a corridor with four does not, which is why space is easier to find late on the busy lanes than on the quiet ones.
The four exit gateways
| Gateway | Railway name | Lanes it serves | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alashankou | Dostyk | Europe, Russia, Central Asia, Afghanistan | The busiest western crossing. Sits in a wind corridor, so loading stops when wind exceeds the operating limit — short stoppages that usually clear in days. |
| Khorgos | Altynkol | Baku, Central Asia, Prague, Afghanistan | The second western crossing, and the one the Middle Corridor runs through to the Caspian. |
| Manzhouli | Zabaikalsk | Russia, including St Petersburg | The northern crossing. The St Petersburg route via Manzhouli changes gauge once instead of twice. |
| Erenhot | Zamiin-Uud | Russia via Mongolia | The eastern crossing, used when the western paths are congested or the cargo origin is in northern China. |
The gateway is not a preference, it is a consequence of the lane. Nobody chooses to send a Baku container through Manzhouli, and no timetable lane to Prague runs through Erenhot. What you can influence is the departure station — which is why we ask for the cargo origin before quoting a lane.
What the gauge change does to your container
China's network is 1,435 mm and the CIS network is 1,520 mm, so every container crosses a break of gauge. On a container train the box is lifted from one flat wagon to another by crane: it is not opened, not devanned, and the cargo is not handled. That is the reason containerised cargo survives the border so much better than wagonload freight.
Most Europe lanes change gauge twice — once at the Chinese exit and once at Małaszewicze on the Polish border, where the 1,520 mm network meets the 1,435 mm European one. The St Petersburg route via Manzhouli changes once. On a fixed-timetable service the duration of each of those handovers is written into the schedule, which is where the 30% advantage over a standard train comes from — not from running faster.
The date that actually matters: cut-off, not departure
Shippers ask when the train leaves. The number to put in your production plan is the day the cargo has to be at the warehouse, and that is earlier than most people assume, because a container has to be picked up, stuffed, consolidated, declared and drayed to the rail platform before the train is even formed.
- Fixed-timetable lanes: cargo at the warehouse three to four days before departure is comfortable. Inside two days we can only offer what is left.
- Weekly lanes (Prague, Budapest): the documentation cut-off usually falls mid-week for a weekend departure. A Thursday arrival at the warehouse generally means the following week.
- Daily lanes (Baku): the penalty for a late file is a day or two, not a week — which is exactly why this lane suits buyers whose production dates move.
Whatever the lane, the missing invoice is the classic cause of a container sitting still. We itemise the invoice with you before departure rather than discovering the problem at the border.
Why some lanes say confirm on the week of booking
Because that is the truth. The Russia, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Minsk and Turkmenistan lanes run to schedules that are set closer to departure and move with the season, the platform's path allocation and the volume on the corridor. Publishing a guessed weekday for those lanes would look more useful and be less honest — and it would put a wrong date in front of a buyer who is planning production around it.
What we do instead: for those lanes we confirm the departure day and the expected arrival in writing at booking, and that written date is the one to hold us to. For the three timetable lanes the day is public and fixed; for everything else the confirmation is the timetable.
LCL does not run on these departures
Groupage has its own rhythm. Your cargo is consolidated at our own CFS inside Xi'an International Port and stuffed there — the seven satellite warehouses in Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Tianjin and Xiamen collect and forward cargo to Xi'an, but nothing is stuffed anywhere except Xi'an. That means the departure you are aiming at is a consolidation date, and the frequency of that consolidation is what caps how long your pallet waits.
| LCL lane | Departures | Transit, station to station |
|---|---|---|
| Xi'an → Baku | Regular departures | 25–35 days |
| Xi'an → Moscow, Selyatino | 2 a week | 25–35 days |
| Xi'an → Duisburg / Warsaw | Weekly | 18–25 days |
| Xi'an → Almaty / Tashkent | Weekly | 7–15 days |
| Xi'an → St Petersburg, Shushary | Confirm on the week of booking | 25–35 days |
Twenty-one departure stations for FCL, one stuffing point for LCL
FCL is booked from twenty-one departure stations across China — seven on the China–Europe lane, fourteen on the China–Russia lane, fourteen across Central Asia and Baku, five for Turkmenistan, with overlap between the groups. The station is chosen on space and on the departure that actually has a slot, not on the shortest distance to your factory; a station two hundred kilometres further away with a guaranteed departure beats a nearer one where your cargo waits a week.
LCL is the opposite: one stuffing point, in Xi'an, and the coastal warehouses are collection points only. If your supplier is in Guangdong and you are shipping groupage, the cargo still travels to Xi'an before it is stuffed.
What we need to hold a slot
- The lane. Departure city in China and the destination station, with the station code where you have it.
- The box or the volume. Container type and count for FCL, or pieces, dimensions and gross weight for LCL.
- The commodity. The declared description, because some categories need an advance check before space can be confirmed.
- The latest arrival date. Give us the date the cargo has to be at destination, and we will work back to the departure and tell you which lane can actually meet it.
- The terms. FOB, CIF, DAP or DDP, so the quote covers the right legs and the right party files the declaration.
Train numbers change; your booking date does not. Timetables are re-issued when the network is re-planned, and a train number quoted from memory is a good way to look uninformed in front of a buyer. If you are writing something into a contract, write the departure date and the expected arrival that we confirmed in writing — those are the commitments that survive a re-timetable.
Frequently asked questions
What train number goes from Xi'an to Duisburg?
X8151, with four departures a week from Xi'an International Port on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 03:55, arriving in 11 to 12 days station to station. The 2024 launch service ran as X8155, which is why you will still see that number in older articles.
How often do trains leave Xi'an for Europe?
About forty block trains a month head towards Europe, and the fixed-timetable lanes add six departures a week between them: four to Duisburg, one to Prague and one to Budapest. Return capacity is thinner — three a week from Duisburg — which matters if you are planning imports rather than exports.
Is there a fixed timetable to Baku?
No fixed-timetable product, but the lane does not need one: Xi'an runs about thirty scheduled block trains a month to Baku, effectively one a day, so a missed departure costs hours rather than a week. The route is rail to Khorgos, across Kazakhstan to Aktau or Kuryk, ferry to Alat Port, then rail to Absheron station.
Which border crossing will my container use?
It follows from the lane rather than from a preference. Baku and Central Asia run through Khorgos. Europe goes through Alashankou or Khorgos and then Małaszewicze. Russia can go through Alashankou, Khorgos or Manzhouli, and the Manzhouli route is the one that changes gauge only once.
How many times does the gauge change?
Twice on most Europe lanes: once at the Chinese exit, and once at Małaszewicze where the 1,520 mm network meets the European 1,435 mm network. Once on the St Petersburg route via Manzhouli. In every case the container is lifted between wagons by crane, not opened and not devanned.
Can I book a specific train number?
On the three fixed-timetable lanes, yes — you are booking a named departure with a published day and hour, subject to space on that train. On the standard block-train lanes there is no train number to book until the departure is formed, so you book a corridor and a departure window instead.
How far in advance should I book?
Two weeks is comfortable on any lane, one week is usually possible, and inside a week we can only offer what is left. In the pre-holiday period before Chinese New Year, add a week: space tightens and cut-offs move earlier rather than later.
Why do some lanes not show a departure day?
Because the day genuinely moves with the season, the platform's path allocation and the volume on the corridor. We confirm it in writing at booking instead of printing a guess. A published weekday that is wrong is worse than an honest confirmation.
Does groupage leave on the same departures?
No. LCL is consolidated at our own CFS in Xi'an and runs on its own consolidation dates: twice a week to Moscow, weekly to Duisburg and Warsaw, weekly to Central Asia, and regular departures to Baku. The seven coastal warehouses receive cargo but do not stuff containers.
What happens if my cargo misses the cut-off?
It rolls to the next departure, and the cost depends entirely on the lane: a day or two on the Baku lane, a whole week on Prague or Budapest. That is why we quote the cut-off date rather than the departure date, and why we would rather tell you a lane is too tight than book cargo we know will miss.